Street Fighter 4 Review

Street Fighter 4 review by Raquay A. Holland

Street Fighter 4 is the fourth game in the popular Street Fighter franchise. It was released for the Xbox 360, PS3, and PC. After playing it, I figured out why the Street Fighter series became so popular. Its fast and furious fighting, beautiful graphics, and stylish gameplay makes this an easy game to recommend.

First, we'll start off with gameplay. You have three types of punches and kicks; a high, medium, and low punch, and that's talking about damage, not position. I was originally a Tekken fan, so it took me a while to get used to having even the shoulder buttons as attacks. Some buttons work as all three punches and kicks. As the fight builds on, two meters will build up: the Super and Ultra Meter. The Super Meter builds up automatically, yet the Ultra Meter, also known as the Revenge Meter, builds up as you get hit, to turn the tide of battle, or end a round with an Ultra Combo Finish. Super and Ultra Combos are very stylish, and can take away nearly half of a full health meter. The Super Meter also helps with doing other special moves. Combining two specific buttons will let you do a throw move, and a new move called a Focus Attack. It's basically a charge up attack that lets you absorb one punch or kick, and then counter it. Each one has his or her own Focus Attack, which adds to the variety of modes you can do.

Next, the visuals. Street Fighter has it's own art style, with elements of ink in a lot of aspects. For the first time in Street Fighter history, it uses 3D grapics, but Street Fighter still remains a 2D fighter, either in homage to the arcade days, or that they know it just works well like that.

The modes are perfect for a fighting game. It has an arcade mode, which tells the story of each individual fighter, with an anime prologue and epilogue. I don't really like anime, mainly because of over-exaggerated facial expressions, and cutesy animals. But this wasn't so bad, since it doesn't have any of the things listed above. During arcade mode, just like the games of yesteryear, somebody else can join in locally or over Xbox Live/Playstation Network. Next, it has a Versus mode, which needs no explanation, and finally, it has Challenge Mode.

Flaws to this game, well, there aren't really much. It has a pretty cruel combo system. I would hit a guy 5 times, yet it would only say 2 or 3 hit combo, at the most. Street Fighter 4 demands your fastest button-pressing skills to the game. Some enemies are really cheap, especially the boss levels. For some reason, I decided to quit the game, but I kept coming back to it. But this game is perfect for beginners, like me. It has 7 or 8 difficulty levels, to put your skills to the ultimate test. The roster is pretty varied, and it has 16 characters already unlocked, and 9 more to unlock via Arcade mode. This game has been one of the greatest fighters I've ever played.

The good: fast and furious fighting, beautiful graphics, diverse roster, stylish combos, has all the modes a fighting game needs.

The bad: cheap enemies, cruel combo system, "bipolar" style.

Score:

9.0

Transformers: War For Cybertron Review

Transformers: War for Cybertron review by Raquay Holland

Transformers: War for Cybertron is a third person shooter game made by High Moon Studios released for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and PC. The game features a somewhat “prequel” story that happened before the movies, as this is probably the first game released for the franchise not based on a movie. As expected, you can play as Autobots, or Decepticons in all phases of the game.

The game has 3 features: a campaign mode in which you can play solo, or cooperatively over the Internet, a multiplayer mode which has modes like Team Deathmatch, Domination, or Free-for-all, and Escalation, which is like Zombies from World at War and Black Ops.

First, the campaign. It pretty much seems similar to a lot of shooters released in recent times. You kill a lot of enemies, and you move to an objective point. Oh, and you'll encounter tons of bosses along the way. Your arsenal of weapons include machine guns, snipers, shotguns, grenades, melee attacks including swords and hammers, rifles, and your vehicle weapons. Your robot can transform into a car, truck, tank, or plane. All this in 10 chapters, 5 for both factions. Once you beat the game, you might still be occupied, as the game offers 3 difficulty levels. Yet, it may seem a bit repititive, and bosses really daunting.

Next, multiplayer. You will get a variety of modes. All the modes include Team Deathmatch, Free-for-all, Domination, a somewhat unique mode called Countdown to Extinction, where you try to place a bomb into the enemy's base, King of the Hill, and Code of Power, where you fight for a giant melee weapon. You are offered 4 classes, each with their own weapons, perks, abilities, and even health amounts. The four classes are Leader, Scout, Soldier, and Scientist. You can level up, and get new weapons, just like Modern Warfare.

Finally, there's Escalation mode, or Zombies if you prefer. You can play as any official Autobot or Decepticon, depending on the map you're playing on. You can get more maps and characters with the DLC that has been released. No more explanation needed here, really. You get points for killing enemies, and can have up to 4 players cooperatively playing. Sound familiar? Also, you can spend your points on health, ammo, other guns, or more passageways. Once you've taken a lot of hits, you can be revived by other players.

All in all, Cybertron is definitely a great game if you're a Transformers fan. If your a shooter fan, though, don't shy away just because it's third person. It's actually a good shooter, and has some good multiplayer options. The campaign can deliver quite a challenge, but isn't that what it's supposed to do? Really, my regrets are that it doesn't have any local capabilities for multiplayer, which can bite in the butt for anyone that doesn't have an Xbox Live or PSN. Connection issues might be a problem, but it might just be my router. If you have a working network connection, like shooters in the third person, and like games that may have a lasting appeal, than this is the game for you.

The good: solid campaign, multiplayer is fun, especially Escalation, you blow stuff up, great story for transformers fans, good controls, great graphics, replay value.

The bad: no local capabilities, can be VERY hard.

Score:

8.5

Battlefield Bad Company

Battlefield: Bad Company is a first person shooter made by DICE Entertainment, or Digital Illusions CE. It was released for the Xbox 360 and PS3. The game features 24 player online play, a really good campaign, and the real reason why this isn't a Call of Duty ripoff is that locations are almost completely destructible.

I haven't really played a game like Bad Company. The gameplay really feels realistic, from commanding a tank, to just shooting an assault rifle. There are tons of different weapons to choose from, and they all have their own specific feel when firing. The main thing about BC is tactical destruction. Nearly everything you see is destructible somehow. You can use this to your advantage, as well as your enemies using it for their advantage. A quick example of how it works. A brick wall in your way? Use a grenade launcher. Sniper on the second floor? Use a grenade launcher. Don't have a grenade launcher? Shoot an explosive barrel to make your way in. Faced with a fence and can't jump over it? Knife through it! Anyone that's used to having indestructible cover will have to get ready in case it blows up. Instead of having a health system that refills over time, Battlefield Bad Company has a health meter ranging from 0 to 100. As you take damage, the number will drop. Once you lose health, don't go into cover and recover. Instead, you get to use a life injector that completely refills your health. All you have to do is wait a couple seconds between each health refill, and refilling is unlimited.

When you're not trying to gun down infantry and vehicles, you're most likely trying to look for collectables along the way. As you progress, you will find different guns from other infantry. Guns you never had before are collectables in the game. Another thing you should look for are crates full of gold, which applies to the storyline.

Online play is superb. Initially, you only get one game mode, and that is Gold Rush. It is played with two teams, Attackers, and Defenders. The goal for the Attackers is to look for two Gold Crates and destroy them. The Defenders try to hold off the Attackers until they run out of reinforcements. You get 25 ranks, which are all from the U.S. Army, and 5 classes to choose from before each life: Assault, Demolition, Recon, Specialist, and Support. The maps you'll play in are seen in the campaign of the game.

On to the story. You play as Private Preston Marlowe as he firsts lands on B company. You meet with the other three people, Privates Sweetwater, Haggard, and Sergeant Redford. At the end of the first level, you find out that a Legionnaire is trying to kill you, and that his army is paid in gold bars. Once you find the gold part out, you decide that you just want to get paid a lot of money when you get out of the situation.

The presentation is probably above average, at the most. The textures look really good, to be honest. However, there are some technical issues. For example, sometimes when you try to use your attack knife, objects and people will always react, but you don't see your knife in motion. That is the same with your auto injector. However, once you really get into the game, you probably won't care if that keeps you alive.

I'm still not done with the gameplay. There are also tons of vehicles you can commandeer or destroy. You can drive an armored van, a tank, or a helicopter. You can also drive a boat, but that doesn't play such a major part in the game. In Call of Duty you can command an AC130, but in Bad Company, you can just drive the helicopter yourself. Another reason why this is different from Call of Duty is that it has a different checkpoint system. In COD, once you die, all of your enemies and hostile vehicles are still there and alive. But in Bad Company, the damage you do to infantry and vehicles stay the same, but there are a lot less checkpoints than in COD. It really adds to the challenge with its checkpoint system.

So, what's the final verdict on this game? Well, the campaign does keep you entertained for a good amount of time. Multiplayer is also what keeps the appeal for a time. There are 3 difficulty levels, tons of collectables and gold crates, and, the icing on the cake: Tactical Destruction. This is the stuff that can make the Editor's Choice.

The good: tactical destruction, its realism, you get to drive vehicles, shooting feels really good, plays well with others, compelling campaign.

The bad: some technical issues, a slight lack of online modes, no co-op.

Score:

9.8